[Spoilers] TNO Does Characters Better than TNC

[Mr. Beef]

Does anyone else feel like TNC kind of blew it in its characterization and getting the player emotionally invested with the characters like TNO did? I'm not even talking about the usual suspects people bring up i.e. "leftist subtext" of the characters like Horton or Grace. It just feel like many of the new characters, and some of the established characters ended up as wasted potential for investing the player in the overall story like the old game did, or just plain screwed up.

For instance, I was thinking about the differences in main villain from TNO vs TNC.
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In TNO you have Deathshead, who not only has history with BJ and crew (from old Wolfenstein games) but also comes off rather understated in his initial interactions, which actually makes him really unsettling. He considers English a "dying tongue", refers to BJ's comrades as mere objects to be taken apart, and interacts with BJ directly as the sole focus of menace in the scene. Deathshead as a character operates with the kind of casual, cool detachment that fits his role as a scientist and someone subscribed to the Nazi ideology. Also, adding the player's choice of who to spare or kill in this first encounter further involves the player with the antagonist, and reinforces just how much control the villain has over the heroes in the situation. It's gripping stuff, especially with the music cues.

When you encounter him later on in the game he is heated at your defiance, not only taunting the player over the castle PA in an increasingly aggressive fashion, but also asserting his own righteousness while doing so, with this line from the Prototype reveal being my favorite:

"People like you...all you peddle is death and destruction! I would ask you to consider: in the end we will be judged not by what we have destroyed...but what we have created!

He also got a ♥♥♥♥♥in' sweet multi-stage bossfight too.

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In TNC, you have Frau Engel, who is already an established character from the previous game. Like in TNO, you have a scene in the beginning where you're rendered powerless, your friends are killed and maimed, and the villain is built up before you. It seems like they kind of threw out the more menacing characteristics of Engel out the window (her dogged taunts through a mangled mouth, spraying spit in your face comes to mind) and focused on her sadistic playfulness first and foremost. The problem with weighting her character this way is that it comes off as cheap, almost cartoonish in her assuredness.

The buildup of her menace as an antagonist is further sabotaged by the other Nazi soldiers and her daughter Sigrun being present. She spends a lot of the scene playing off the other soldiers' polite laughter and getting repeatedly subverted by Sigrun's cowardice. It dilutes Engel's sense of control by continually drawing the player's attention all over the place from "we're going to be tortured and killed horrifically" to "Frau Engel a terrible mother" to "wow this teenager is making her mother lose face" and back around again after she finally cuts Caroline's head off, which even then doesn't have as strong of a musical cue to go along with it. It's a scene with a lot of wasted potential.

Not to mention really schlocky, cringeworthy lines like:

"How does it taste...the gunpowder of the bullet that killed your friend? How does it feel? Do you love the taste?"

"Would you like to kiss the bride? But not before the wedding!"

Like, ****ing hell man. And then she dies in a single button press and a cutscene.


tl;dr: TNC forgets TNO's method of developing memorable characters and cheapens some of the experience by going for a more consistently over-the-top tone and dialogue. Sometimes it works well, like with Super Spesh and Horton, but in many instances it just undermines the characters (see: Grace, Frau Engel, BJ's father).

[DisableBore]

Agreed to the fullest. Deathead was a legitimately horrifying villan and Frau was intimidating as hell whenever she showed up.

Now she's a literal annoying granma with some sexual innuendo that is pretty uncomfortable.

[Gotcha28]

I was also dissappointed the whole childhood flashback and his dad they could have skipped and missed nothing :( I still don't get the end I fight 2 big robots and thats it ??? I was sure I was going to the top of that ship to fight the boss but they just got lazy. Its like they said lets put all this crap in a bag and sell it as is :(

[Tycho]

TNO is just simply a better game than TNC.
TNC is cringy and characters like Horton, Super Spesh and Grace almost ruin it.
Super Spesh is probably the worst hands down. Him making a big deal about the toilet and then they go back to that joke several times...it's just awful. Not to mention the Giorgio Tsoukalos reference is very unwelcome and forced too.

Grace is a walking stereotype. Nothing she does comes off as anything resembling a human being.

They also ruined Bombatte. There's this really awkward awful scene toward the end where he's yelling at Max, a mental handicap, demanding that Max smile for him because of how it makes HIM feel.

Let's not even mention the really lame forced crap about BJ's dad.

Set, Fergus, Anya, and BJ are likable though.
I actually thought that Set (outside of that awful party scene, where everyone is acting cringy as hell) was more likable in this one, although not as multifaceted as he was in TNO.

Overall, I have to wonder how they went from TNO and TOB, which were very well done, to this. It's like they forgot how to write a decent story.

[DisableBore]

引用自 Tycho：

They also ruined Bombatte. There's this really awkward awful scene toward the end where he's yelling at Max, a mental handicap, demanding that Max smile for him because of how it makes HIM feel.

What was the point of that even? Thats a downright despicable potrayal and use of the poor guy to have a "emotional scene".

Jesus the tone and writing is all over the place, more I think of it the more I dislike it.

[Tycho]

引用自 DisableBore：

What was the point of that even? Thats a downright despicable potrayal and use of the poor guy to have a "emotional scene".

Jesus the tone and writing is all over the place, more I think of it the more I dislike it.

While I’m on the topic of Max, the scene at the party where they have BJ punch Max as hard as he can is uncomfortable too.

Overall, the game ok, it just has a lot of problems with the narrative and is vastly inferior to TNO/TOB

[DisableBore]

引用自 Tycho：

引用自 DisableBore：

What was the point of that even? Thats a downright despicable potrayal and use of the poor guy to have a "emotional scene".

Jesus the tone and writing is all over the place, more I think of it the more I dislike it.

While I’m on the topic of Max, the scene at the party where they have BJ punch Max as hard as he can is uncomfortable too.

Overall, the game ok, it just has a lot of problems with the narrative and is vastly inferior to TNO/TOB

I remember it. Skipped the thing eventually, literal cringe.

[Ray]

引用自 DisableBore：

引用自 Tycho：

They also ruined Bombatte. There's this really awkward awful scene toward the end where he's yelling at Max, a mental handicap, demanding that Max smile for him because of how it makes HIM feel.

What was the point of that even? Thats a downright despicable potrayal and use of the poor guy to have a "emotional scene".

Jesus the tone and writing is all over the place, more I think of it the more I dislike it.

The point is that Max is the game's stand in for childlike innocence. Max is sad, and Bombate tried to cheer him up. When Max has none of it, Bombate has a minor breakdown because Max's Sadness reminds him of the murder of his wife and children. He's learned to repress that memory, but Max, being like a child, brings up those feelinga and tears Bombate up inside and he doesn't want to deal with it.

The problem is, the game shows a lot and tells very little, much like real life. This means if you're not paying attention, you miss a lot of the nuance in this game, and there is a crapload of nuance going on here. If you don't like to mull over things, and instead like to jump to conclusions, then the The New Colossus probablu isn't for you.

[Tycho]

引用自 Ray：

The point is that Max is the game's stand in for childlike innocence. Max is sad, and Bombate tried to cheer him up. When Max has none of it, Bombate has a minor breakdown because Max's Sadness reminds him of the murder of his wife and children. He's learned to repress that memory, but Max, being like a child, brings up those feelinga and tears Bombate up inside and he doesn't want to deal with it.

The problem is, the game shows a lot and tells very little, much like real life. This means if you're not paying attention, you mis a lot of the nuance in this game, and there is a crapload of nuance going on here. If you don't like to mull over things, and instead like to jump to conclusions, then the The New Colossus probablu isn't for you.

No, the game told that in that very conversation, exposition was all over that scene and it was very blatant. Problem is he’s still demanding the mental handicap to perform for him to make him feel better. It’s very uncomfortable.


>tfw too intelligent for TNC

[Jay]

My problem with Grace is that she has no reason to be in the story in the first place.

So BJ gets in contact with the Manhattan resistance in order to get a new leader after Caroline dies...why not make Wyatt/Fergus leader now? Why not just BJ? I'd prefer the former, since this could've been a great way of developing Wyatt into a better leader (Which seems like what they're going for in the cutscene with Wyatt talking to BJ in his room), but Wyatt just ends up being a walking LSD joke the whole game. The whole reason for them needing Grace in the first place seems so contrived and unnecessary, and she takes up time that could've been used for the characters we already care about.

[Mr. Beef]

引用自 Jeff：

My problem with Grace is that she has no reason to be in the story in the first place.

So BJ gets in contact with the Manhattan resistance in order to get a new leader after Caroline dies...why not make Wyatt/Fergus leader now? Why not just BJ? I'd prefer the former, since this could've been a great way of developing Wyatt into a better leader (Which seems like what they're going for in the cutscene with Wyatt talking to BJ in his room), but Wyatt just ends up being a walking LSD joke the whole game. The whole reason for them needing Grace in the first place seems so contrived and unnecessary, and she takes up time that could've been used for the characters we already care about.

That bothered me a lot too. Grace makes her way on board, sets up shop in Caroline's room on a whim, and starts ordering people around the moment she arrives. It doesn't feel realistic that the whole ship would just go along with it when a) she owes the Kreisau Circle for basically bailing her out of a dead end situation and b) the crew is still dealing with the loss of their fearless leader.

The argument can be made she would be technically be considered the spearhead behind US operations given that she's been operating in the region for a long time, but it doesn't feel realistic that the close-knit Kreisau Circle would just immediately accept an unknown, relatively volatile newcomer to head up top-level command just like that. Even something as simple as adding a few months of timeskip would help encourage the emotional believability way more. Like Klaus Kreutz? He had been with the resistance for at least several months, despite his former Nazi background, and the additional foster-father connection to Max Hass reinforces it.

And Horton...Horton is so much wasted potential. The tone of TNC really fit Horton and BJ's heated argument over moonshine and a loaded pistol. But they didn't really visit Horton as a character at all after that other than the birthday party scene.